Steve picked up his phone and spat out orders for his plane to be readied. “Pastor, would you come with me to Los Angeles, take me to my little girl?” he asked quietly. The pastor nodded, and within two hours, the two men were on board Steve’s private jet winging their way south. There was a limo waiting for them, and the pastor directed them to a parking lot outside a large mall.
At the furthest end of the lot, a pickup truck was parked, with a tent set up at the back. Pastor Morris had told Steve that when Susan’s husband died in a work accident, the insurance company had refused to pay out and the bank foreclosed on the mortgage.
Susan had piled the children and their few belongings into the old pickup. She worked at the mall as a cleaner. She and the children used the mall’s facilities and bought whatever was leftover at the restaurants at the end of the night. Still, she had managed to keep the four children fed, clean, and in school.
As the two men approached the truck, they heard cheerful voices and laughter. Then two children tumbled out of the back. The biggest girl, about fourteen, was laughing as she tickled a boy of about seven. The children stopped and gaped at Steve and Pastor Morris.
“Mom!” the girl yelled. “That old preacher friend of yours is here!” A well-remembered voice asked from inside the tent, “Preacher Morris?” Then Susan climbed out and Steve could see the shock in her face when she saw him standing next to the pastor. “Daddy?” she asked, and her eyes filled with tears.
Steve was shocked. His daughter was barely thirty-one, but she looked much older. Her face was worn and lined with worry and suffering, her hands coarsened by hard work. “Susan,” Steve cried. “Look at you! Look at what HE did to my princess!”
“I wanted so much for you! And you married that loser! What could he give you? Poverty?” Susan shook her head and said, “He loved me, daddy, and he gave me 4 beautiful children. He died, and I had nowhere to go, but I’ve done what I can for my children.” “I will always love the father of my children, daddy, just like I’ve always loved you.”
Steve found that he had tears running down his face. “Forgive me, Susan,” he sobbed. “Please forgive me. Come home, I want you all to come home with me.” “Let me help you take care of the children!”
Steve found himself holding his weeping daughter and knew that everything was going to be alright. Susan introduced him to his three granddaughters, then she placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And this,” she smiled, “is little Stevie!” “You named him after me?” Steve asked, astounded. “After what I did?”
“I love you, daddy,” she said softly. “Don’t you know that?” That afternoon, they all flew home to Texas. It was the beginning of a better life for all of them.
